[garry22]

A couple of years ago I wrote some advertising copy for someone's website. I get copies of all e mail enquires so that I can amend the copy as needs be according to questions asked.

The site itself is at the top of the rankings for numerous search terms.

I cannot believe how many e mails come in from SEO companies (mostly in the UK, not many from India) offering SEO services.

They go to great lengths explaining how they do all this meticulous research of keywords and competition yet thay fail to see that it's already at the top of the rankings.

The e mails refer to that specific site and appear to have been sent by hand (maybe they are filling in the gaps automatically in the text).

It hardly inspires confidence in their research ability does it? 

[Carpet Dawg]

I've had that plus i've had numpties on the phone trying to sell me web site creation! numpties.
When i tell them i have a site, they say erm really? i cant find it on google etc etc making out that if he cant find your site potential customers cant! cheeky buggers trying to pull one over on me! 

[Neil Williams]

The ultimate stupid sales calls.
Them: "We can get you on page one of google."
Me: "Impressive!"
Them: 5 minutes of waffle
Me: "So how did you find us?"
Them: More waffle avoiding the question
Me: "Have you tried doing a search Carpet Cleaning Basingstoke?"
Them: "Yeh I have but I couldn't find you"
Me: "Do you know what you're doing because the last time I looked we were top of page 1"
Them: "Are you sure"
Me: "Stop wasting my time bye" phone down.

[wynne jones]

I can understand it. Just chuck them out and see what sticks. It's like the cold caller who rings 200 people a day to sell double glasing 'it's a numbers game my son' they are told.  :

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

What polite (and also impolite ways) do you have for dealing with such enquiries?

Niel has already given one reply.

My take is:

THEM can I speak to the owner?
Me: No
(pause)
Them: why not
Me: she doesn't speak to anybody who doesn't know her name!

Gotcha! (Ker-ching)

Rog

[wynne jones]

Just say you are the police and did you know the deceased.

[Mike Halliday]

this is a copy of an email I get quite often, as wynne says they must just send 100s out hoping to get  a bite, they have never 'surfed' my website or even know my current position.

Hello and Good Day!

 

I am Melanie, Marketing Manager with a reputed online marketing company based in New Delhi, India.

 

I was surfing through your website and realized that despite having a good design; it was not ranking on any of the search engines for most of the keywords pertaining to your domain.

 

I was wondering if you would be interested in getting the SEO done for your website.

 

There is a simple equation that is applicable to the online world.

 

Ethical SEO -> Better Traffic -> Higher Sales

 

We are an ISO Certified, SEMPO registered Online marketing firm and have over 6 years of working experience. All the techniques used are ethical and proprietary.

 

In case you require any additional information, it shall be our pleasure to furnish the same.

 

So let me know if you would like me to mail you more details or schedule a call. We'll be pleased to serve you.

 

I look forward to your mail.

 

Yours sincerely,

Melanie

Marketing Manager

[Helen]

And I bet 'Melanie' has one of those strange accents that sounds like she's based about 6,000 miles away from Britain

[wynne jones]

If I had a genuine company like that I wood want to show you something that made your letter/email stick out like a bulldogs danglies.

So taking the quality rather than quantity approach I would trawl my local companys outside the top ten in google and then see if there top ten competition was on shaky ground. Then I would send them a printout of it and HOW THEY could do it themselves.

If on the other hand they didn't understand or too busy/lazy    they could let me do it. They would pay for specific work and no guarantee of postion (because you can't can you).

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Because I have lot's of sites I will be inundated with messages similar to the above, irrespective of whether they rank 1 or 100.

It's extremely lazy and I would never employ one of these cowboys.

If someone had taken the time to actually analyse one of my sites and made concrete suggestions then I might consider it.

Cheers

Doug

[paul wallace]

I quite often ask if it's ok to hold the line then just wait until it's dropped off, payback for sitting in thoses call q's 

[JandS]

Good idea Paul.

John

[Mike Halliday]

if you are going to do that at least do it properly, have a tape recorder playing with.......

 "your call is very important to us, please hold and we will return shortly"

and have the soundtrack to Starwars playing in the background 

[JandS]

Good idea Paul.

John

[garry22]

Just to emphasise the point...

Had two calls today from the same company.

(Them) "Can I speak to the person who deals with your website and search engine optimisation please?

(Me) "Which site?"

(T) "Oh. Er,  the West midlands one"

(M) "That's me. Oh dear, I hope there is not a problem with the site?"

(T) "No problem but we can help you get much higher up the rankings"

(M) "Oh dear, that will be a problem, you see, we are at no1 on Google page 1 already"

(T) "Ah. Er"

(M) "Maybe it would have been better to check that first?"

(T) "Er yes, Er, thank you , goodbye".

The same person then rang back about half an hour later. Could not be bothered to talk to them this time.

Garry

[wynne jones]

Do you get a lot of work on your site then Garry?

[garry22]

The short honest answer at present is no.

Both sites, at present, only target office carpet cleaning. According to the stats, the number of searches is right down (searches as well as visits), although overall there does seem to be more people contacting us via the web. Both needs lots of work (total rebuilds) but with the other projects, I never seem to have time to do my own sites.

I am involved in a few website projects outside carpet cleaning and those seem to be getting far more traffic. Maybe it's a carpet cleaning thing?

I hate to say this but we used to get a lot of traffic from Yell.com (until they made it virtually impossible to do business with them).

[wynne jones]

I'm sure the general trend is down but where you live I think makes a difference some guys are lucky to live in certain places where the web is good for them. If you have the talents and the fish ain't biting, find another niche!

[garry22]

Wynne,

I ought to qualify that by saying both sites were languishing on the third page of Google until I decided to put some work in about seven weeks ago. One had not been touched in years. One has just got to the top and there have been a couple of enquires this week.

I'm involved in another (sadly not financially!) which is in the property restoration niche and that gets about 1,500 hits a month and a couple of e mail enquiries everyday. That market is showing no signs of recession problems. In saying that, it ranks for the whole of the UK rather than a small geographical area.

Maybe I should have another go at the dog training niche (a sad story about how I thought I knew it all and decided to take on the big boys of internet marketing)

Garry

[Neil Williams]

Just to emphasise the point...
Had two calls today from the same company.

I had my two yesterday.
Them: Have you heard of google?
Me: Can't say I have! (I'm seriously ready to play the game now)
Them: You're joking me
Me: Is that something to do with internet things?
Them: Are you serious?
Me:Yes of course I've heard of google.
Them: Ah very good! We are.......(you know the rest)
Me: Where did you find our number?
Them: Yell.com
Me: Now try doing the same thing on google and then come back to me. Bye.

You would think they would do the very basic research wouldn't you